Home is where the puck is

We're two weeks out from our grand farewell
to the Northeast, and still Steph and I don't have a place to
live in Atlanta. This might come as a shock to many of you with whom
we have exchanged emails describing a picture perfect little classic
Atlanta home in the heart of
emerging East Atlanta Village, but
sadly we had to pass on that one when it became known that it was
being held up by a hockey puck …

Now let me come clean, I have no great knowledge in the field of
real estate science nor do I really have much interest. So when I
talk disparagingly of homes that are held up by hockey pucks, my
assertion rests solely on intuition, which I confess may be a bit
shaky. And to be honest, the circular black thing resting below an
improvised brace that serves as the foundation of the home under
which we were once contractually bound to purchase, may not have
actually been a hockey puck. It could, for instance, have been a
wheel from a retired lawn mower, a small petrified choclate cheese
cake, or even an old tuna can. Like I said, I'm no expert in real
estate. Maybe someone more knowledgeable in the field can take a
peek at the photograph above and make a more informed
categorization. But be it tuna can or hockey puck, it was only the
first in a long series of clever “renovations” that our
inspector stumbled upon while perusing the innards and upards of our
quaint little home. For instance, while most in the building trade
restrict themselves to quality treated lumber, our new home featured
an untreated log as a floor brace along with an accompanying
random piece of lumber to account for a slight mismatch in
height. Whereas other builders simply lack the creativity to produce
structural support using a 2x4, a brick and a glob of mortar, the
builder who “renovated” our new home was unswayed by
such conformity. Even our inspector, with all his experience, was so
astounded that he was forced to abandon all attempt at explanation
and was reduced to only questions, “why do you mortar a 2x4 to
a brick?” Which, by the way, remains an unsolved mystery as
far as I know. Feel free to chime in with your own theories, but
I've already suggested it was a clever measure to prevent the undead
in the secret burial ground from knocking over the 2x4's when the
moon is full. So if that's what you were thinking, I've already suggested it.

The final inspection report read like some kind of H.P. Lovecraft
tale of construction horror with eldritch wires draping
themselves throughout, creeping through walls and appearing in the
most unexpected and inappropriate places. Under the house were dark
wet areas where noisome mold was assembling for a slow
silent invasion from below. In places, the walls and roof gave the
illusion of melting as rugose patches showed evidence of
early water damage. And the beams along the back deck were assembled
in an irregular, cyclopean manner making it more suited for
stalking than standing. (Oh, So you see all those words in
italics. Those were odd words that H.P. Lovecraft used. They're odd
archaic British English and they sound pretty spooky. See how that's
funny … no?) Anyway, trust me when I say it was a pretty
eerie read for a couple of folks who were on the line for a few
grand. Had we not insisted upon finding an inspector through our own
social networks, we could have very easily been living right there
above the mysterious hockey puck and deadly toxic mold … oh,
and the random asbestos materials that somehow rode out the
“renovation.”

So while we can't offer you a seat in our quaint new home down in
Atlanta, we can offer two very crucial tips for those who will
follow us into this Poe-like world of home ownership where oddities
(perhaps even sports equipment) lurk below the floor
boards.

Before you buy a house in the Atlanta area, contact this guy:

Walter Barnwell
w/ Home Inspection Team
(404) 672-0020

Trust me, he may not know why 2x4's are mortared
to bricks, but he knows everything else about houses and he
definitely does a very thorough inspection and gives earnest and
sound advice about his findings.

And, if you find yourself standing
at 699
Brownwood Avenue in Atlanta thinking what a quaint little
classic Atlanta home you've found right in the heart of emerging
East Atlanta, either move along or bring a goalie mask. We're
pretty sure at this point that the whole thing was an
orchestrated scam and we're happy to have caught on before it
was too late.

So there you have it, despite our best efforts we remain
homeless. And to make matters worse, we just spent a week trying to
end a contract rather than closing one. We have a couple of other
options we're pursuing, but negotiations are slow and it isn't clear
if we'll reach an agreement with anyone before we're living in the
back corner of Piedmont Park. Before we started this process we took
for granted the fine craft of contract contingencies. Now that we
see one must anticipate such findings as hockey pucks wedged in the
foundation of a home, we're certainly a lot more appreciative of (which
is archaic English for “disgusted by”) the whole process.